Horn of South Africa

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Hugh Masekela grew up in a "redneck, right-wing" town near
Johannesburg.

"Through the centre of Witbank ran a creek that bisected the
town by race," the black South African musician writes in his
biography, Still Grazing. Being black "meant being called
a kaffir, bowing and smiling, cap in hand, for the white folks,
knowing your place and never looking forward to getting anywhere in
the world".

The trumpeter, flugelhorn player and vocalist suffered 31 years
of exile under apartheid. He returned to South Africa in the early
1990s.

He says Australia is racist. "My impressions of Australia are no
different from my impressions about other countries that have
racism," says Masekela, 65, who performs at a festival in Ballarat
celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Eureka uprising.

"It's blatant racism against the Aboriginal people of the
country. We experienced it too."

Masekela says he "became a pilgrim" in the years away from South
Africa after the Sharpeville massacre by police of 69 protesters in
1960. He lived in Britain, the US and Africa. He returned to South
Africa a year after Nelson Mandela's release in 1990.

"Freedom is sweet," he says, "but the core taste of freedom is .
. . some economic advantages and those we don't have yet. We're
free politically but economically we're still slaves."

He was born in April, 1939. His father was a health inspector,
his mother a social worker. "I grew up with a lot of music," he
says. "The street music, music from the miners, the migrant workers
and music from the gramophone - and a lot of white hate."

Masekela was inspired by Kirk Douglas' portrayal of the
legendary jazz trumpeter, Bix Beiderbecke, in the 1950 film
Young Man With A Horn.

Another inspiration, the late Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, an
anti-apartheid campaigner forced to quit the country, was chaplain
at his boarding school. "I was always in a jam with the school
authorities," Masekela recalls. "He said, 'What would you really
like to do?' I said, 'Father, if I got a trumpet, I wouldn't bother
anybody any more.' "

His trumpet was sent to the school by Louis Armstrong, after
hearing Huddleston's account of the Huddleston Jazz Band.

I tell Masekela that in 1987, on a visit to my native Cape Town,
I'd repeatedly listened to a tape of one of his albums. He was
still exiled but he wanted to be there, he sang, when the people
celebrated freedom.

"I'm celebrating still with the people every day," he says,
hastening to add that freedom doesn't mean much to the South
Africans living in poverty.

Hugh Masekela and his band play at the Echoes of Freedom
festival in Ballarat, which starts on Thursday. He is also speaking
at RMIT, city, on Monday in the Outside Voices discussion
series.